MSU Climate Research to be Featured on PBS Series 'NOVA'

From MSU News Service: Research conducted at Montana State University will be featured on a new episode of the popular PBS series “NOVA” this Wednesday. The episode, titled “Inside the Megafire,” will include the research of MSU ecology professor Cathy Whitlock and her laboratory group, as well as footage of the researchers’ fieldwork in Yellowstone National Park and MSU’s Paleoecology Lab.

The show will air at 8 p.m. Wednesday and will stream online at pbs.org/nova. The episode will include reports from California’s deadly Camp Fire and examine the factors that feed the recent rise in “megafires,” from forestry practices to climate change to the physics of fire itself.

Whitlock, a Montana University System Regents Professor who has worked for decades in the fields of geology, geography and ecology, was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in April. She is a paleoecologist in MSU’s Department of Earth Sciences in the College of Letters and Science who looks at the past to understand how ecosystems have evolved in the face of a changing climate, natural disturbances and human pressure.

Whitlock researched the large 1988 fires in Yellowstone to understand the long-term connections between fire, people and climate worldwide. Whitlock was also lead author of the 2017 Montana Climate Assessment, a report released by the Montana Institute on Ecosystems that focuses on climate trends and their consequences for Montana’s water, forests and agriculture.

MSU’s Paleoecology Lab, directed by Whitlock, was established in 2004 to study the changes in ecosystems over time with a particular focus on the effects of climate change on plants. Researchers in the lab study the vegetation, fire and climate history of the West and other temperate regions around the world by examining fossils and other matter preserved in lake sediments.

From UM News Service: Wildfires can have dramatic impacts on Western landscapes and communities, but human values determine whether the changes caused by fire are desired or dreaded. This is the simple – but often overlooked – message from a collaborative team of 23 researchers led by University of Montana faculty in a study published in the May issue of the journal BioScience.

From MSU News Service: Research conducted at Montana State University will be featured on a new episode of the popular PBS series “NOVA” this Wednesday. The episode, titled “Inside the Megafire,” will include the research of MSU ecology professor Cathy Whitlock and her laboratory group, as well as footage of the researchers’ fieldwork in Yellowstone National Park and MSU’s Paleoecology Lab.

Bob Quinn, an organic farmer from Big Sandy, Montana and Liz Carlisle, a Lecturer in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University, will deliver a lecture on their new book Grain by Grain: A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs, and Healthy Food at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 23, at the Procrastinator Theater.

From MSU News Service: Montana State University researchers will share their latest bee science at an evening symposium that will include short films and a question and answer session with an expert panel. The annual Pollinator Symposium will take place at Inspiration Hall in MSU's new Norm Asbjornson Hall on Thursday, April 18, starting at 6 p.m. The event runs until 8 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Position Description: The person would be in charge of maintaining (i.e., mostly weeding and some planting) the pollinator garden, Pollinator Garden volunteer days (May 31st, June 19th, and July 15th), and mowing. Weekly reporting to Michelle Flenniken. Communication of weekly goals will occur via email and phone. In addition to reporting to Michelle Flenniken, this job is also under the direction of David Baumbauer, the Manager of the Horticulture Farm.

A new study from researchers at the University of Montana focuses on the ability of low-elevation forests to regenerate after wildfires. The study, titled "Wildfires and Climate Change Push Low-elevation Forests Across a Critical Climate Threshold for Regeneration" and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that climate change makes it increasingly difficult for tree seedlings to regenerate following wildfires in low-elevation forests, which could contribute to abrupt forest loss.